'' ustad ali akbar khan '' - film of raag pilu 1967.

~ I can't and will not even attempt to go into this great man's history and work...so many musicians & critic's call him a 'genius' and the finest player on earth... with a very brief bio i will say that he came from east bengal (later bandladesh) and from a young age was taken under the wing of his strict father and quickly taught tabla/surbahar/sitar and of course the sarod for which he is most famous for....practice sessions of 18hrs a day were common for over 20 yrs or more....he was also the former brother in law of ravi shankar....he opened his own school of music in calcutta 1956 and in '65 relocated to berkeley & in '67 founded the 'ali akbar khan college of music' which then relocated to marin county.....many rock musicians who heard him wanted to study and here it gets interesting with three members of san francisco group 'the great society'....in may '66 oscar daniels who was playing guitar for the 'LSD light show' and was also about to join the society played darby slick a khan record which blew him away...he then found out through oscar that khan was going to teach morning lessons over in berkeley so slick/daniels & peter van gelder of the society all made their way to berkeley from their home in marin five days a week to study....they would later make plans to go to india and study further with the great master after selling all their equipment and cars....so essentially it spelled out the end of the great society....this was filmed at the university of washington with tabla maestro mahapurush mishra & ashish khan tanpura....if you want to explore further there are countless albums on the market place along with various dvd performances....his shadow cast a huge spell over the many musicians living and working in the bay area....